Been There Done That (Leffersbee #1) - Hope Ellis Page 0,89
approach in my peripheral vision, right before his body crashed into mine. That would have fine, if that had been all, but it wasn’t that simple as it turned out. Everything—the contents of both my hands, the plate, and the carafe of coffee—left my grip. My shoulder collided with a wall that—surprise!—wasn’t a wall at all, but a cleverly hidden doorway leading to a short flight of stairs below. I had a fleeting thought: Leigh was right, we are old bitches now—right before I descended down into the darkness and was hit with the worst pain of my life.
Chapter Twenty-One
Zora
“Zora.”
I blinked and opened my eyes.
Nick leaned over me, face tight. His bright eyes gleamed in the darkened interior of the car. “We’re here. You ready?”
That’s right. I’d fallen asleep in the car on the way back from the hospital. Blindly, I reached for the side lever and raised the passenger seat of Nick’s car to a sitting position.
Nick put a staying hand on my arm. “Careful. Slow down.”
I winced as the seat raised with a motorized whine. “I’m all right. Just a little sore.”
His mouth tightened. “When I get my hands on him—”
“Nick Armstrong. Rossi. Whatever your last name is now, whatever you want me to call you.” I was more than a little loopy. “If you say anything more to that man than ‘I’m sorry,’ I will take a strip out of your hind parts.”
“Your mother says that.” His cheek lifted a fraction in a smile, then fell again.
“Yeah, well, I mean it. Nothing justified the way you yelled at that poor man. It was terrible.”
“You fell down a half flight of stairs. You have second degree burns on your foot.”
“In some places,” I argued, but even I’d gotten queasy watching layers of skin slide away from my instep. “And it’s my skin to lose. That means I’m the only one entitled to do any yelling. I guarantee that poor man has shit stains in his pants. You were awful to him.”
“You were on the floor,” he said, as if that explained everything. “Practically in tears, clutching your leg. You think I’m not going to seek out who’s responsible?”
“It was an accident.”
His jaw tightened.
Dear God. What a day.
One minute I’d been mentally fanning my lady parts, the next I’d been bowled over by one of Nick’s employees. A carafe of fresh, scalding coffee nosedived off the counter and joined me through the door, down the stairs, and finally on the cement floor. I’d mangled my back and managed to burn the hell out of my right foot.
Just another day in my world.
Meanwhile, Nick absolutely decimated the poor runner in a display of temper I hadn’t thought him capable of summoning. I’d worried his head would explode during the drive to the hospital.
It had been a humiliating ordeal, in full view of my colleagues and Nick’s employees.
I studied Nick’s grim expression in the swath of an outside streetlight, the grim set of his lips, the granite clench to his jaw.
Yes, today’s ordeal had been painful. And awkward, especially with him at my side while I modeled a hospital gown.
And abruptly personal. He’d held my hand through all the difficult parts, his arm wrapped around me, lips pressed to my forehead at one point when I couldn’t help but whimper.
But I was certain that, somehow, he’d suffered more.
Something about the way he held himself, muscles bunched tight, mouth compressed in a single bloodless line, told me he was terrified.
Or traumatized.
I hadn’t realized or remembered he hated hospitals. Maybe I’d never realized how much his mother’s car accident years ago might have affected him. I’d insisted he stay with me in the hospital bay, so I could keep an eye on him. Some nagging instinct told me I should not leave him alone in the waiting room.
I eventually texted Adesola and asked her to come down to the ER. Not for me. For him. I discerned the slightest bit of relief in his posture when she pulled back the curtain in our little examining area and came in with her usual shit talk. She’d showed him a picture of the shoes she’d bought, jawed with him over communication training processes for his staff, and kept him otherwise busy.
I’d done my part by reassuring him that I was fine. Several times.
But even now, as we sat in my driveway outside my house, I felt the ferocious tension coming off him in waves.
“I’m fine,” I said, for what had to be the millionth time.